Lodging / Tourism

The lodging/tourism industry relies on federal legislation to promote a travel-friendly environment. Comprised of hotels, resorts and travel/tour companies, this industry is part of the miscellaneous business sector, and therefore has additional interest in congressional action regarding taxes, jobs and immigration policy. This industry does not include airlines, which is its own industry.

The lodging/tourism industry's contributions to federal candidates and political committees experienced a drastic increase in the 2008 election cycle. This followed a notable decline in contributions between the 2000 and 2006 election cycles. This 2008 cycle spike, at $9.6 million, almost doubled the amount donated in the previous cycle. Although the industry gave most of its donations to Barack Obama's presidential campaign, the majority of the top 20 candidate recipients were Republicans. During the past two decades, contributions from this industry have favored Republican federal candidates and committees over Democratic federal candidates and committees, 54 percent to 45 percent. [Read more Background]

Average Contributions to Members of Congress, 1990-2014

Data for the current election cycle were released by the Federal Election Commission on Monday, March 09, 2015

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